Slow Tech in a Fast World

Bought a game in Early Access.
Waited two years for 1.0.
Played ten minutes. Uninstalled.

Back then, you just plugged it in and got to buckin’.
Now it’s like Spaceballs — preparing for ludicrous speed just to start a game.

When Technology Stopped Feeling Like Progress

Most tech doesn’t break.
It just isn’t working the way we were told it would.

Think back to when you first joined a social network. The promise was simple: connect with your friends. Share a few photos, catch up with someone from school, send a birthday message without digging through an address book.

Now open it. Instead of your friends, you get a wall of algorithmically injected content — influencers selling teeth-whitening kits, strangers yelling about news you didn’t ask to hear, trending memes designed to keep you swiping for “just one more.” Infinity silly reaction - you know than you have a video and a small “face with emotions” at the bottom of the screen. It’s not built for connection anymore. It’s built for consumption.

We’ve tried to patch it.
Screen-time trackers. Focus modes. Dumb phones.
They’re all good intentions, but they’re band-aids on a deep wound. They’re like hanging blackout curtains in a casino — you block the flashing lights, but you’re still inside the building.

Maybe the problem isn’t that we use technology wrong or we can’t control ourselves or lucking discipline.
Maybe some tech just designed wrong.

A Pyramid of Dependence

If Maslow had drawn a hierarchy for the digital age, it would look something like this:

  • Bottom tier — The “remote control” layer.
    Tap to transfer money. Summon a ride. Unlock a shared car or bike. Buzz open a door. Schedule a delivery. Command a robot vacuum from your couch. This is the magic layer — the part of tech that still feels miraculous if you zoom out far enough.
  • Middle tier — “Do the job done” layer.
    The essentials for functioning in modern life: Slack, Gmail, instant notifications. You can’t opt out without opting out of your job, your bills, your basic obligations.
  • Top tier — The forgotten layer.
    The tools for slowing down. Thinking. Creating. Experiencing art. Activities that thrive when you aren’t optimized, when you aren’t being nudged into the next click. This layer is disappearing, or being absorbed into the same devices and apps that are built for speed and distraction.

And here’s the problem: since around 2010, the layers have collapsed into the same glowing rectangle — phone, tablet, laptop, TV. It is your work tool, your remote control, your entertainment system, your creative studio, your social network, your newspaper. It’s become an absorbing thing, capable of doing anything… which ironically makes it harder to truly focus on one thing.

Why It might look like We Are Going Back

There’s a reason vinyl records, cassette tapes, and cartridge video games keep coming back. Sells skyrocket in the last 15 years. Industry almost maid it at the end of two thousands than everything become so minimalistic, everything in one place no hassle to explore media but humans need dedicated physical objects...
And it’s not because they’re technically better. And it is not about nostalgia.
It’s because they work on your terms.

  • Pace: A vinyl record has two sides. You put one on, listen all the way through, and then — if you want more — you flip it. No algorithm shuffling your taste every three minutes.
  • Control: A cartridge game from 1989 boots instantly. No “Day One” patches. No 150GB downloads. No server maintenance downtime.
  • Ownership: If you have it, you can use it. No one can revoke your license because a deal expired.

Streaming hides its fragility well — until your favorite show vanishes overnight because of a licensing shuffle. Games launch half-finished, promising updates “soon”. Your music library exists only until the platform decides otherwise.

The Slow Tech We Still Have

Books — especially physical ones — are slow tech in their purest form.
You walk into a shop or a library, you pick one out, you take it home. You own it. No battery, no updates, no subscription renewal. It doesn’t ask you to sign in. It doesn’t vanish from your shelf because of a licensing deal. As long as you can still turn a page, it works.

There’s a kind of permanence to a physical book that digital culture can’t touch. You can scribble in the margins. Fold the corners. Spill coffee on it and still finish the chapter. You can hand it to a friend without needing to “share a link.” If the internet goes dark tomorrow, your bookshelf won’t notice.

Even e-readers can fit into slow tech — but only if they keep their single purpose.
A first-generation Kindle is still perfectly capable of holding an entire library. You can load it up with books, turn off Wi‑Fi, and read for weeks. Nothing disappears, nothing nags you to update, nothing pulls you out of the story. It moves at your pace. Time doesn’t matter.

Music can be slow tech too — if the software respects you.
That’s why I like Roon. It doesn’t treat your library as a hostage. Your local files stay local. Your playlists are yours. Streaming integrations work without erasing or hiding what you already own. It’s the difference between renting an apartment and living in a house you built yourself — one day the lease is up, the other is yours as long as you take care of it.

Some newer devices have embraced slow tech on purpose.
The Analogue Pocket is a love letter to handheld gaming. It plays original cartridges from the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance — the same ones you might still have in a drawer. No mandatory downloads, no server checks. You pop in the game, press start, and you’re there.

The Playdate is another. A bright yellow, crank-powered handheld that ships with a season of small, inventive games. No microtransactions. No battle passes. You play because it’s fun, not because you’re grinding toward some endless, monetized “content roadmap.” It’s a device that remembers games used to be about delight, not retention metrics.

The Three Rules of Slow Tech

From these moments — and countless others — I’ve come to believe slow tech boils down to three principles:

  1. Pace: You set the tempo, not the algorithm.
  2. Control: You decide when and how it works, without coercion from “updates” or design tricks.
  3. Ownership: If it can vanish from your life without your consent, you never really owned it.

This Isn’t Nostalgia.
Slow tech isn’t about living in the past.
It’s about refusing to trade control for convenience.
It’s about tools that will work the same in 2050 as they do now.

Thank you for reading.

I hope this essay nudges you to take one small step toward slow tech.

It doesn’t have to be radical. Start with something simple:

  • The next time you stream music, put your phone face down, close your eyes, and give the sound your full attention. Let your imagination carry it, not the algorithm.
  • On your next flight or business trip, skip the in-flight screen. Pick up a book from the airport shop, any book, and read it cover to cover.

You might be surprised at how different — and how alive — those moments feel.